The Four Steps to the Epiphany

If you are reading to learn skills that can be implemented in your startup, I’d recommend The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful by Eric Reis and actually avoid its predecessor The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win by Steve Blank until later in your career.

I must confess that I did not actually read the full book. I did read one particular summary which really helped me think about building a startup in a very different way. Having spent much of time before starting my second business as a product manager, the advice ensured a more customer-centric rather than product-centric approach.

Question: What books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path?

Answer: I would recommend the following ones:

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things
• Who? How to recruit A players
• Les Cles du futur by Jean Staune (in French)
• All the books written by Peter Drucker (The Essentials of Drucker)
• The 4 steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank
• Freakonomics
• The books by Jack Welsh (especially for French people as it is somewhat contrarian to their education)

Buy it, read it, keep it under your pillow and absorb it via osmosis.